India play against West Indies in an ODI match at Chepauk as part of preparations for the World Cup later in 2011. I am asked to bowl at the nets for both teams. International teams invite local bowlers to bowl in the nets because they don't want to exhaust their own bowlers before the actual match. This is my first such invitation.
I am excited at the prospect of bowling to Chris Gayle , Brian Lara, my hero Sachin Tendulkar, and the hottest name in Indian cricket today, MS Dhoni . I have read about how Imran Khan plucked Waqar Younis out of a nets session even before he had started playing proper domestic cricket. Appa has told me how Kris Srikkanth impressed Sunil Gavaskar in a local game, and that's how he ended up playing for India. These thoughts are not entirely out of my mind. I am going to be bowling in flesh and blood to players I have dreamed of playing with and against.
The West Indies team is the first to arrive for training. Chepauk doesn't have separate nets, so the nets are arranged on the side pitches at the main ground. I bowl to Gayle first. I get him out caught and bowled. Later, I have him edging. I look at him for a reaction because in nets, be it at club level, Ranji Trophy level or anywhere else, the batter nods at you, appreciates you or just says "bowled", to acknowledge you. Gayle just picks the ball up and throws it back at me. No eye contact. No reaction.
He gets out, no reaction. He tonks me, no reaction. I think Gayle is probably peculiar, but as I bowl to other batters, it is the same. They smack you, no reaction. They struggle against you, no reaction. Just pick up the ball and bowl again. I find it weird.
And it is not limited to the West Indies players either. India batters are the same. During the India nets, a friend comes and watches from the stands. He wants a photo with Dhoni after the nets so that he can impress girls in college. I, too, am crazy about Dhoni. The way he hits, the way he finishes games, the long hair. He is just a phenomenon.
After we are done, I click a photo with Dhoni myself. I tell him about my friend, and he obliges. My friend is over the moon, but I tell him I am not coming as a nets bowler again. He is stunned. Not only does he want to come and take more photos tomorrow to impress girls, he is generally shocked at me giving up a chance to bowl at these guys.
I tell him what happened. I feel heartbroken. I don't exactly know what I expected when I came to the nets. Yes, those fairy tales of selections of net bowlers are a thought in my mind, but not an expectation. It is something else that has hurt me. I tell my friend I have never been to a cricket match or practice session where nobody has acknowledged me. People try to find out which club you play for or which school or college you study at, but here nobody even asked me what my name was.
I call up the nets organiser who had offered me the gig and tell him I will not be coming tomorrow. Instead, I go to Chemplast and train on my own. I think playing street cricket is more fun than bowling at these internationals. Over the next few days, though, I realise they didn't do it to me because they are bad people. It is just that these are professional cricketers in their bubble, striving for excellence. They must be facing hundreds of bowlers like me. They can't be acknowledging everyone's presence. Worship your heroes from a distance; when you get close to them, be good enough to be one of them.
I don't think any less of my cricket heroes because they didn't acknowledge me when I bowled, but I also don't want to be servicing them with nothing in it for me. I still feel like an ordinary person for servicing them without any acknowledgement when I do well or generally of my effort. So, I don't regret pulling out of the nets. Nor do I want to be just a nets bowler ever again.
This is an excerpt from I Have the Streets: a Kutti Cricket Story , by R Ashwin and Sidharth Monga, published by Penguin Random House India
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